SHURE-ly it's junk...right?

DSCF8627.JPGOn this blog, a few of the items I have in my junk box are junk in waiting and someday will become a useful item. I remember that I needed these when I got my first real turntable. It's a Shure turntable cartridge. It was the one above the cheapest one I could get.

You see, I never was one for records. I had my Soundesign "rock on rock" turntable to play the few records that I had. We used to have a Goodwill right across the street and this was in the 80's when you would pay a few bucks for stuff rather than tens of bucks. That's when I found a Technics turntable. All it needed was a needle. It's not the best from Technics but it's better than any crystal ceramic piece of dung on cheap turn tables.

100_2805.JPGA man built this! It's a turntable! It has a lot of dust on it because I haven't used it for two years. When I started using it again, I had to get a belt for it as the old one had rotted from lack of use.  You can see the duplicate Shure cartridge I bought for it. I've been using the same for all these years, but maybe it's seen 150 sides, so it's still good as used.

DSCF8628.JPGSo, I bought two of these suckers. Guess from where? I must have bought these in 1989 or so. I went into the Northeast Appliance store in North Olmsted (a store I'd have the "pleasure" of closing forever a few years later.) The tag said 30 bucks but I think I got two for $40. Even back then, turntables were on the way out. Northeast had 4 cartridges back then ranging from $20 to $80 and well, I don't even remember if we still carried them when I helped scrape NENO from the memories of Clevelanders. So, buying two, I thought was a good idea. I still had only a few singles and some EP's and DEVO and Kraftwerk albums. I didn't listen to them, I taped them if they weren't out on CD.

DSCF8626.JPGShure DTE800. What a bunch of advertising speak! "Durabody Encapsulated"?  It's not a allergy tablet, it's a record player cartridge. "Construction ensures long life and performance uniformity".  What the hell does that mean? I guess it means they pooped hundreds of thousands of these from the factory and they would all perform the same. Of course, every turntable and every system is different. Every record is different. It may sound like sh*t when played on your $20,000 HIFI, but on a $8 turntable from Goodwill through a Soundesign stereo? It'll sound A-OK. The bit about a diamond tip for improved blah blah blah, that's the only reasonable claim. I think the more expensive these got, the more adjectives they used to describe it.

DSCF8629.JPGSo, I plan to eventually put this to use in the above turntable, but right now, it lies dormant in my junk collection. Junk until it becomes UN Junk. Hey! There's a slogan in there. Dormant texture returns to a bright, crisp , audio experience when rescued from this beautiful, clean and delectable piled high junk system to perform it's excellence finally for the 180G platters.

Junk Blog Bonus    

100_2799.JPGFor those of you who might have wanted to know what vinyl I had sitting in front of my turntable, here it is! The very first LP I ever bought, and it's a double set. It's all orchestra. I thought I was going to get Meco's disco Cantina band. No dice. My brother had the mono GE record player and I played this a bit, but it was mostly boring to me. As for the movie, I liked it but I didn't go nuts for space crap and well, I think I've seen the other two original movies on video or TV and the new three flicks, the Jar Jar one on TV. Sorry geeks and fudds.

What's more of interest is that I stuck a sales stamp for "Music City News" on it. Likely is was from the giant Publishers Clearing House (or a competitor, yes, they had competitors in the 70's.) big envelope of fun. It even says "newspaper format". It later double as a price tag as I must have tried to see this at a flea market a long time ago as it has 1.00 on it. Hey! I'll buy that for 1.00! What's that dust? It's black... OH, it's vinyl grindings from being played with a rock. Neat movie photos and the big scary DARTH on the back.

ARF! -Ric